Lent is long. It begins with such good intentions, and then it
meets the challenges of everyday life. Some years, it meets the challenges of
extraordinarily difficult life. No matter what, living the rhythm of Lent
brings us face to face with the modern world in ways that bring the
contradictions of our culture and our faith into sharp focus. The walk with
Jesus from the triumphant moments of Palm Sunday to the morning of the
Resurrection gives us insight into how to live as Easter people in a society
that seems to have lost its way.
When Jesus gathers with his disciples in the upper room just
before he is betrayed by Judas, he leaves us a legacy. In those intimate hours
with his disciples before he is crucified, he draws us very near to him and
offers us a template for living that proves to be exactly what we need today.
The Gospel of John, in particular, pulls us into Jesus’ final hours with his
dearest friends and asks us to slow down and truly live Holy Week in a way that
will change us for the rest of our lives.
He gathers his friends close to him, and then he kneels to serve.
On his knees, he tenderly washes their feet and tells them that in order to
live as his disciples, they must follow his example and kneel to serve as well.
Surely, the disciples were perplexed by this, but Jesus doesn’t really give
them much time to parse it. He moves on to the gift that will fuel them for the
hard life that lies ahead. He gives them the Eucharist — their strength and sustenance.
He tells them very clearly to consecrate bread in memory of him, to live those
moments around the table again and again in order to receive the grace of the
sacrament. He says that he will live within them, real and present in their
lives. In almost the same breath, he tells them clearly to love one another.
The two are inextricably intertwined: grace and love, sacrament and service.
This is the pattern Jesus leaves for us. Come to him for the grace that will
fuel the service. He has everything we need to live as he commands while we
wait in expectant hope for him to come again in glory.
Continuing in John’s Gospel, Jesus prays. With all the love and
wisdom of a master about to leave his students forever, he looks to heaven and
asks the tender mercy and magnificent strength of the glory of God for the
friends he is about to leave behind. That prayer (Jn:17), prayed on their
behalf, is the prayer we can pray during Holy Week, during the Easter season
and on a hot day in July when life is just a struggle. In that prayer, Jesus
pulls together the three years he spent living daily life with his dearest
friends and he casts a vision for the life they will live after his death. He
helps them to understand that they are entirely new people now, and the work
they have done together will become the foundation of the work they will
continue to do as they live the life of apostles of Christ.
Jesus takes his time through those last chapters of John, slowing
us down and inviting us to pause. As we look toward Holy Week, can we accept his
invitation? Can we sit in silence pondering the prayer he left us? Can we see
the pattern of life he crafted? Can we begin to understand that this life, in a
world so far removed from an upper room in Jerusalem during the Passover, is
the same world he envisioned when Christ showed us to begin on our knees in
service, to receive the gift of grace in the Eucharist, and to look to heaven
and offer our lives for the glory of God? Can we see that that is the truest
life we can live?
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, is a
freelance writer from Northern Virginia.